Hacker Musings and OCD

Stop blaming Apple for your decisions

All of my music is in iTunes, having been re-imported from the original CDs over a period of time. I can just re-rip all of it on my Linux box, but that’s going to suck. Or, I can try to grovel around in their grungy database and try to make sense of it and “export” things, but I’m sure that will be even worse.

First and foremost, you have failed to do basic research. The simplest Google search shows that most modern distros can play AAC files*, provided they’re not DRM’d. Since you state you ripped from CDs, “importing” your music is as simple as copying the files over. You might lose some ratings and playlists. Big deal.

Another problem is going to be iPhoto. I’ve cropped, rotated, geotagged, sharpened, level-adjusted, and done countless other things to my thousands of pictures. They all also live in some database which is effectively opaque. While there’s probably some way to get it out, it will be far from trivial.

They’re all on the filesystem. Some data loss (geotags, etc) is locked in the database-thing iPhoto uses, but the corrected photos (along with the originals) are stored as simple images. You won’t lose the most important thing, which is the images themselves.

Then there’s my phone. How do you use one of these things without a computer upon which to sync your data and backups? I don’t believe they can realistically behave properly while completely untethered. That means relying on iCloud, and you’d have to be crazy to do that. Besides, that would just give them more of a grip on my data and more ways to change things and screw me.

You bought an iPhone and now you’re complaining that it’s locked you into the Apple ecosystem. OK, fine, except this is what people complain about all the time, since the goddamn thing appeared. Stop whining and do some basic consumer research.

Maybe I’ll wind up with a relatively dumb phone again, and then I’ll start carrying my point-and-shoot camera around once more. If I need a map, I’ll look before I leave the house and write a quick note with the pertinent details, just like I did for years pre-iPhone. That will cover phone calls, pictures, and even short videos. It will also free me from being on a relentless treadmill from Cupertino, Mountain View, or Redmond.

I really need to stop reading Hacker News. There’s millions of people living without clean water and the most horrible thing to happen to them is the possible loss of some iTunes metadata for their immense CD collection.

* although you apparently have to jump through hoops since AAC is wrapped up in IP the freetards dislike. But it wasn’t hard to find what appeared to be the right combination of plugins.